


The Geography of Efreet

by tabulaxrasa



Category: Abarat Series - Clive Barker
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-01
Updated: 2009-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-19 10:11:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/199709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tabulaxrasa/pseuds/tabulaxrasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Candy and Carrion in the Dead Man's House. AU for <i>Days of Magic, Nights of War.</i> (Written for Yuletide 2009 for noisystar)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Geography of Efreet

_On the Nonce, they were trying to form a glyph. They chanted and circled and threw all the air they could, but though the occasional word shimmered in the air, nothing cohered, nothing grew._

 _Malingo was blinking back tears when he finally called a halt. "It's not going to work this time." He hung his head. He'd failed Candy. All she'd done for him, and he couldn't help her once._

 _"Let's get on the boat," Finnegan said. "We need to leave as soon as possible." He lay a hand on the geshrat's shoulder. "Don't worry," he said. "The Izabella will be with us. It's not that far to Efreet. We'll get there in time."_

* * *

Something was prowling outside the window again. Candy kept her back to it. It couldn't get in _she couldn't get out_. It couldn't get in. That was the important thing.

She wanted Malingo, wanted to go home, wanted to be gone from this place, wanted to be back safe in the arms of the Izabella as she had been so many times before.

But it wasn't so bad. It had been worse being hunted by the Criss-Cross Man. Worse being hunted than being caught. As Carrion's…guest… she had very fine clothes— everything from big swooshy dresses to adventuring gear, anything she wanted, she found— and even though she was confined to one building it wasn't any more boring than the rest of the Abarat. There was always something new, something unexpected. It was just that in the House, there were things she wished she hadn't seen.

The Dead Man's House had an infinite variety of rooms that came and went; some were always there, or at least always discoverable. Some she had only seen but once; some, she knew, she would never see.

She spent a lot of time wandering the House. There was a courtyard for fresh air (the exterior windows didn't open). They don't open any of the windows very much anyway, because it hadn't stopped snowing.

Candy spent a lot of time wandering the house because she dreaded sleep.

("I don't mean to give you nightmares," he told her. He reached out a pale hand as if to lay it over hers where it rested on the table between them. If he touched her she'd scream. His hand hovered over hers, cold, then retreated back to his side of the table. Candy exhaled.)

There are three things he made clear to her:

1) He is keeping her in this House, on Efreet, to save her life  
2) He wants to marry her  
3) The Hamster Tree Song is not to be sung in his presence

Had Candy realized how obsessed he was with her before finding out he intended to marry her, she would have been more fearful. She might have been inclined to think he'd hurt her; but there was something curiously harmless about him wanting to marry her. Or if not harmless, because she really wouldn't ever call him harmless, it gave her a measure of security. Not only did he want her alive, he didn't _want_ to hurt her. And that alone put her in a very select category.

She liked it better when she was alone. If she missed anyone, it didn't show, then.

 

Candy was in a room without furniture. The wooden walls were covered with tiny portraits, however, and she lost track of time looking into them. They were more like little film clips than portraits, repeating a scene 5, 10, 20 seconds long, over and over. Most of them took place in the Abarat, but some looked like they came from her world.

In one, a man walked off a pier, over and over. In another, a creature that looked disturbingly like a geshrat fell off a ladder, falling for a long time. She never saw him hit the ground, but the way his ears streamed and flapped in the wind was disturbing enough. The worst one, though, was a rectangle smaller than her palm that seemed to be filled with a fog that streamed and swirled. In this one, a dark blur moved from one edge to another, a quick dark streak before disappearing from view. But this one didn't repeat, instead the blur got closer and closer, or so she assumed from the way the dark shape got larger each time it crossed into view. Candy left it with a shudder before the thing got too close or too clear.

She was watching a car fall off a seaside road and onto a boat, over and over, and thinking of how her brothers would like this, when a thump behind her made her jump and spin around, heart pounding loudly and painfully.

It was Letheo; of course it was Letheo. Candy had certainly not thought it was the dark shape come out of its portrait to get her.

"What are you doing, Lady?" he asked. Staring, he was always staring. Not at her, though, not when she looked at him. He hadn't met her eyes since they'd come here.

"Don't sneak up on me like that!" she snapped, louder and harsher than she'd intended.

He flinched, and Candy flinched in sympathy. "I'm sorry," they both spoke at once. Candy smiled at him, and although he didn't smile back, he relaxed, his shoulders dropping to a more normal level.

"What did you want?" she asked him.

Letheo looked first to one side then the other. "I just… wanted to check on you," he muttered. "It is a strange house."

"It is that," Candy sighed, rolled her neck from side to side.

"And to remind you—" and then he straightened his shoulders and his throat before continuing— "to remind you that the Lord of Midnight has had dinner set for fifteen minutes from now, and that should give you just enough time to change."

His important messenger-tone fell off toward the end. Perhaps he sensed her embarrassment or he himself was embarrassed. Candy didn't look at him to try and guess.

"Thank you," she said. She thought of other things to say but in the end just walked past him, careful not to brush against him. No one is allowed to lay a hand on her, that's a rule, and it doesn't work strictly. The last time she touched Letheo, accidentally even, it caused him considerable pain. Candy won't let it happen again.

He doesn't follow her out of the room, not while she's still in the hallway.

 

In her own room, where she is no longer disconcerted by the light shining from all the cracks where the house isn't put together very well, Candy took off her dusty pants and tunic and put on a dress. It's silk, or something like it (probably, Candy's prior experience with silk was extremely limited), and there are mother-of-pearl threads (or something like it) embroidering patterns all along the neck and sleeves and bodice. It's almost a nice pattern. It's very _expensive_ , although Candy isn't really sure how she knows that.

It's a fun dress, with a floor-length full skirt, the kind girls secretly long to wear. She puts up her hair and looks in the mirror. She doesn't look like herself; but then, that's the point.

"O woe is me!  
O woe is me!  
I used to have a Hamster Tree!"

She started to sing in defiance, but the Candy in the mirror looked so pale and wan that Candy lost the desire to sing, especially _O woe is me._

No doubt it was past time for dinner, anyway.

Candy could quite often get away with not seeing Carrion all day, but they always ate dinner together, or something that passed for eating dinner together, anyway. It probably should have been breakfast, because Efreet was always at six o'clock, but darkness was flexible that way. They always dressed for dinner, too, and ate in the long, dark dining room, just the two of them, with silent servants bringing in one bizarre course after another.

Sometimes, Candy missed eating in front of the tv. The thought of watching a show staring the Commexo Kid while sitting on the couch next to Carrion, though, made Candy cover her mouth so a hysterical laugh wouldn't burst out.

"You're late," the Lord of Midnight said when Candy finally stepped into the dining room.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I lost track of time. I was in a room with lots of little pictures—" she sat down in her place, at the far end of the ridiculously long table— "and I ended up quite dusty."

"I quite understand," he said.

Candy tried to smile. She did not dare believe that he really loved her enough for it to always save her life.

"Did you like the pictures? The miniatures, I assume?" The soup was brought out and put before her. It was a black broth, with some kind of fish. Candy tried some anyway; all the food looked disgusting but some of it was actually quite good. Not this soup, but some of it.

"I liked some of them," she said, trying to be diplomatic about the miniatures.

The way his face brightened made her stomach clench. Even if the soup had been palatable, she would have lost her appetite.

She gently laid down her spoon; Carrion made a face and jerked his hand and a servant immediately took Candy's bowl away. Carrion didn't eat, himself, he just kept Candy company while she ate.

The kitchen was getting better at guessing what she'd like, though, and the next course was quite good. Carrion went on asking about which paintings she had liked (in Candy's head, it was the ones she could tolerate).

Dinner was awkward and painful, as it always was. He liked to go on talking to her afterwards, and sometimes it seemed smart to let him, but tonight she said she had a headache and crawled into her bed as soon as she could. At night the sparkling lights dimmed, enough that she could sleep. Candy lay on her back and stared at the high ceiling.

She could not imagine being married to him. She did actually try, to be fair, and out of natural curiosity, but she couldn't get around his tank mask with the liquid he apparently lived off of and the horrible wriggling nightmares swimming, always swimming, around his head.

She told herself things like _you can't actually marry someone if you can't kiss._ She made herself believe it, lying in the dark, face twisted up and pressed into the pillow.

Was he even really alive?

 

Another day.

All the days here seemed gray, even though the light sparkled and cracked and flashed a full spectrum as it did. Even though the ground outside was covered in white snow, all the light coming in the house seemed to be gray. Add in the dust Candy frequently found herself covered in after exploring rooms and she thought she might be turning gray herself.

It was all so different from the rest of the Abarat, which was a riot of life and movement and song and, above all, of color. Even on the night time aisles, there was vibrant color and life. She thought that might be true on Efreet as well, that it was just inside the Dead Man's House that everything faded to gray.

"What's on the rest of Efreet?" she asked Letheo one day.

He blinked at her, startled, and looked around as he always did. Guilty, and afraid of getting caught.

"The beasts," he said. "And some ruins, that were once the city of Koy, by the shore."

"I've read _Klepp's Almenak_ too," Candy said. "I know what it says in there. I want to know what you've seen."

Letheo shook his head. "I don't leave this house any more than you do," he said. "And I've been on Efreet just as long as you. We usually live on Gorgossium, you know."

"Hmm," Candy said. She cocked her head a little to one side, looking out the window. It had stopped snowing. "Hmm."

 

She wasn't late to dinner that night, and gave herself plenty of time to dress before it. She even wore a necklace that had been left in her room, presumably by Carrion.

He seemed pleased to see it that night. And Candy obediently ate everything, sipped her wine, and let a smile tease around her mouth for a good four courses.

"You seem in a very pleasant humor tonight," Carrion said, and there was something cautious in his tone. It made Candy bolder.

"It's stopped snowing," she said, and smiled.

"Do you hate snow so much?"

"No-o… I just thought," she was starting to get nervous, and Candy started fidgeting with her silverware, "that since the weather's improved… I mean, I wanted to see Koy."

He raised what passed for eyebrows on his wasted face. "I wondered what it was going to be that you wanted." Candy blushed and pulled her hands off the table and clenched them in her lap. "You want to see the ruins of Koy? Why?"

Candy forced herself to unclench her hands. She pressed them flat on her legs and pushed down hard. Then she lifted her head to look Carrion in the eye. "Isn't it enough that I want it?"

Against her instincts, she refused to hold her breath as she awaited his reply. This was what it was.

"Aren't you afraid of ghosts?" he asked at last.

"No," she said immediately.

"Well," he said. "Well, well."

 

The Lord of Midnight could make a glyph by speaking only a few words. Candy wasn't close enough to hear the words but she felt the rush of air and the tingle on her skin that spoke of strong magic.

When the glyph assembled, the three of them— Candy, Carrion, and Letheo— climbed into it and they lifted silently into the air.

"Letheo will know the way," Carrion remarked. When Candy turned to stare at Letheo, he lowered his eyes to the floor and refused to raise them to her.

He did take a few swift glances out the windows and mumbled a few single word directions to Carrion, but it wasn't not long before they were setting down again.

Candy eagerly scrambled out. The moon was low in the sky but the Abarat stars were bright in the cold, clear air. Candy was wearing a long coat, a fur hat, gloves, and snow boots, so she was mostly warm enough, but the wind coming off the water stung on her cheeks and burned her windpipes when she inhaled.

"Well?" Carrion had to shout into the wind. "Lady Candy, what do you think of your city?"

They'd landed in the middle of a large plaza. There were once buildings all around, that much is clear. There are now columns rising out of the snow at odd angles. On one side, a two story group of columns still stands, four on the bottom and three on the top. Candy stepped up onto a foundation and climbed onto an empty column base. It didn't really give her a much better view, but it was easier to survey the whole scene. There were some low ruined walls further off, and a skeletal dome off to her right.

In the square beneath her, Carrion stood, apparently not bothered by wind or cold, a dark mass against the shining snow and bleached stone. Letheo was still by the glyph, huddled in on himself, blending into the shadows.

Candy jumped off the column base and headed, vaguely, for the dome. She ignored her two companions and walked between two half upright columns, across the footprint of a long, narrow building, and stumbled over a pile of snow that turned out to be bricks.

The walls were all made of a smooth pale stone that blended well with snow in the starlight. Candy turned down a small street marked by an intact arch and not much else.

The road surface has become slanted by time, neglect, or disaster, but with a layer of snow it doesn't make much difference. Candy scrapes enough snow aside to see that the streets were once paved with large flat flagstones.

The next block had walls at shoulder height. It's a tiny bit warmer, our of most of the wind, but Candy was moving quickly anyway. This is her first taste of freedom in… how many days has she been on Efreet? When it's always 6:00 in the morning, it was hard to tell when one day ended and another began. How many dinners, how many times had she slept? Did they even occur 24 hours apart by her body's internal clock? She was pretty sure that, too, was deeply messed up by the Abarat.

She turned right at the next street, when she looked down it and saw the dome ahead. It stood in the middle of what might have been gardens, if the trees were anything to go by. Whatever it might have looked like at its height, now the dome was a skeleton of black metal.

Candy went to stand underneath it anyway. She tipped her head back and looked up at the stars shining between the gently glinting bars. There must have once been more to it. At the base of the dome there were still squinches in place made from actual huge shells from the sea. They were chipped and faded now, but must once have been lovely. The wind whistled as it moved among the ruins, making strange noises as it was pushed into strange shapes by the leavings of civilization.

"Candy."

She jumped and slipped as she turned around. She hated it when he snuck up on her.

Carrion smiled at her, behind his tank and liquid, smiled at her from behind his nightmares.

"You do like it then?" he asked.

"It's very beautiful," she answered honestly, "but very sad. The people who made this weren't happy to leave, were they?"

He did not respond immediately. Candy watched her breath fog briefly in the air before being whirled away by the wind. "There are signs of violence," Carrion said. "Easier to see when there isn't snow, but I'm sure we could find some, if you like."

Candy wasn't sure if she wanted to see that or not. "What happened to them, the people who used to live here?" she asked. _Klepp's_ had only said "Opinions vary as to how long Koy stood, and why it fell…"

"You might ask Letheo," Carrion said. "He's one of them."

Candy gasped. Carrion was looking at her steadily, and she believed him. Letheo's lie stung her. She had no reason to expect anything else from Carrion's apprentice or whatever Letheo was, but it still tasted like betrayal.

Letheo, who became a monster without his medicine. Candy's shiver had nothing to do with the chilled air around her. "Were they eaten by the monsters?" she asked, "or…?"

"It's probably fair to say that for most of them. They killed each other off, eventually. Tore the city to ruins themselves when they changed."

Candy felt a sharp pang on the behalf of the extinct citizenry of Koy. Loosing everything that had made them who they were, tearing their beautiful city to pieces themselves because they couldn't help themselves anymore. Did the monsters have any sense of self? She almost hoped not.

"The center of civilization," Carrion said, "destroyed by the very people who so treasured it." His voice carried on the wind, wrapping around Candy the same way the breeze found unprotected skin with its sharp icy touch.

She felt far more uncomfortable here now than she had before. She felt like she was being watched, but she took a good look around and she and Carrion appeared to be the only ones in the garden. She moved a little closer to him without quite meaning too.

"Is it true what _Klepp's_ says," she spoke almost in a whisper, "that lost and unhappy souls find their way here?"

He looked at her then, eyes sharp and searching in the way she hated. "You feel it too, then?" he murmured. He beckoned her closer and she went, only half-reluctantly. The brightest things around were the nightmares, giving off their sickly glow and curling close to Carrion's face, as if in comfort.

Candy shuddered and turned away.

"I think it may be time to go," Carrion said. "We are not wanted here."

Candy was more than ready to leave the garden, which had once seemed so welcoming. Carrion walked very close to her, and said, in a very low voice. "Do not stop. Do not turn around."

A horrible thrill ran up the back of Candy's neck; under her hat her hair felt like it was standing on end. Part of her wanted to turn around, just to annoy him; the other, majority, part felt that turning around would be an act of enormous bravery she wasn't prepared to commit. _Ghosts are just people who are dead_ , she reminded herself. _And these ghosts are people who turned into monsters and who don't want us here._

They headed back for the plaza they'd landed in. There was snow floating in the air, not from the sky but being blown around by the wind. It was still enough to get in Candy's eyes and make her clothes damp. She kept her head down, concentrating on her footing, so she almost missed it when Carrion suddenly stopped walking.

He threw out an arm in front of her and Candy had to jerk back to keep from touching him. He didn't appear to notice, this time, though. He was staring in a fixed way at the end of the little alley they were in.

"What is it?" she breathed.

"Hush," he whispered back sharply. "There is a beast. It is hunting us."

Candy was almost relieved, despite the rush of adrenaline that kicked in. At least it was something she could see. There were ways to handle the beast. "Should we run?" she whispered.

"Never run from a wild animal. And HUSH."

He took a careful step forward in the snow. Somewhere, something else also took a careful step.

Candy was beginning to be more afraid. Carrion was obviously afraid, and that was what was scaring her, more than anything. She was under no illusion that the beast eating Carrion would do her any good or set her free. If it ate Carrion, Candy would be dessert.

Carrion whispered something, but it was distorted by the liquid, the nightmares (which were now clinging around his neck), the glass and everything else. A large gust of wind came rattling down the alley, carrying a heavy cloud of snow with it. It somehow missed them but seemed to hang at the other end of the alley.

"Come," Carrion said, and for the first time he grabbed her. He hauled her by the back of the coat across the small alley and shoved her through a doorway. "Stay in there until I come for you," he ordered and the doorway disappeared.

Candy, head spinning a little, put her hand on the wall she'd just come through. It was cold and solid, but she felt a little tingle in her skin where she had her hand pressed against the stone. Magic, then. He'd put a magic barrier up to keep her in here.

Or, to be fair, to keep something else out. Candy hoped he came back for her.

The building she was in was mostly intact. It had a low ceiling with a ragged hole in one corner and an uneven dirt floor. The walls were painted in frescos, though, and the paint was glowing. It was very faint, because the paint was very old and the walls quite dingy besides. They must have glowed brightly when they were fresh. It was a clever and probably lovely thing for a nighttime isle, glow in the dark paint. The hues were more subtle and varied than anything in the world of Chickentown.

They still gave off just enough light that Candy could walk without stumbling too badly on the floor. She went to look out of the hole in the ceiling, wondering if she could make it out of there if she had to.

Candy shivered and pulled her coat more closely around her. It was quite as cold inside as out, despite being shut off from the wind. She couldn't hear anything from outside, other than the occasional high-pitched howl of wind catching on the rough edges of the ceiling gap. There were no windows.

When she sighed, her breath hung in the air in front of her this time, until she eventually waved it away. She spent some time examining the murals, which were may or may not have depicted the widely varied inhabitants of Koy.

Candy was looking at a depiction of brightly colored birds gathered around a fountain when she felt a vibration move through the building. She wasn't sure if it was a particularly strong gust of wind shaking the building or if something was thrown— or was slammed— against the side.

"Hello?" she shouted. When the echoes died away she called "Is anyone out there?" She considered calling for Carrion and Letheo, but she wasn't sure how much attention she wanted to attract.

Candy pressed her ear against the wall, listening. She could hear the wind scraping against the stone, but after a few moments she heard another sound, too. At first it just blended into the sound of the wind, but then the scraping became something sharper, almost metallic, and it came in longer strokes against the wall. It started to sound deliberate.

"Who's there?" it came out a hoarse whisper. Candy pulled back from the wall and moved back toward the center of the room. But now that she'd heard the scratching she couldn't unhear it. It was almost like nails on a chalkboard and Candy couldn't stop herself from shivering. Quite a few colorful urban legends were crowding through her head; some might even have been Abratian.

The scratching stopped. Candy held her breath, listening, but then it started up, louder than before, around the spot in the wall Candy thought the door had been.

Whatever was outside was definitely trying to get in, then. She backed toward the accidental skylight. Could she get up there? And how quickly?

In the dim light Candy could start to see something wrong with a section of wall. Either the magic was wearing off or it was being worn through by the scratching.

She darted quick glances all around the room but it was as empty as before. Nothing to use as a weapon.

The thing was scratching at the doorway in earnest now, and she could see the magical stones vibrating with each gouge. They looked fainter too, and Candy could easily tell the original stone from Carrion's barrier. The pounding of her own heart sounded very loud in her ears.

Finally, some of the magical stone crumbled and a long silver claw flashed in the building. The beast outside roared in triumph. It stopped scraping for a moment and tried throwing its weight at the barrier. The stones shook violently, and for a heart-stopping moment Candy thought they would fall, but somehow the wall held.

There wasn't much reason for relief, though. The beast seemed to realize the wall would not fall so easily and went back to work with its claws, pulling as well as scraping, clawing almost frantically at the tiny opening it had already managed to create.

The wall was weakening quickly now. Candy could almost see through the stones, and she had the impression of something big and hairy and strong on the other side. It could fit most of a paw through the gap in the wall now, four long, curved claws gleaming in the gentle multi-colored light.

Candy fought to keep herself in the middle of the room. If she backed into a corner now, she'd have no where left to run. The wolf was at the door, and she was alone in an empty room in a long-dead city.

 _It's my own fault,_ she thought. _I wanted to come._ And she still didn't regret it— not coming here, and certainly not coming to the Abarat. That was, and always would be, the right decision, the best decision she could have made.

The wall abruptly crumbled, and the beast seemed shocked by its success. It lingered in the doorway for a moment, for a second as frozen as Candy, then roared with triumph. It had very small eyes under a lot of long, dirty-white hair, and they glittered at Candy. It definitely knew right where she was.

Candy was starting to think very seriously about that corner, but the beast's roar abruptly turned high-pitched and it threw its head up. Its back grew concave like a reverse arch and it squirmed back out of the doorway. It was screaming, Candy realized.

The scream started to waver then started all over again, or regained intensity. Hearing the scream was even more terrible than the roar; Candy felt like she couldn't move even had she wanted to.

The beast's screams tapered off and there was something like sobbing before that, too, was silenced.

"Candy?"

Carrion stepped through the door, movements quick and jerky; he relaxed when he saw her. "Are you unharmed?"

Candy forced her muscles to untense and slowly nodded. "Unharmed" was a good way to put it. "All right" was certainly not what she was at the moment.

"It's dead," Carrion offered, and Candy was reminded of a cat bringing a dead bird to the door.

"You killed it," she said. Her voice was hoarse, and she thought a scream might still be hanging around the edges.

"Of course," he said. "It wanted to eat you."

"I noticed," Candy replied, and a little hysteria leaked out with it. She clapped a hand over her mouth to silence the giggle.

"You're shaking," Carrion said with concern. "We must get you out of here."

Candy nodded. _Yes, oh yes._ She crossed the room and stepped out of the building at last. Carrion was bending over the dead beast. He was gently, even tenderly, cradling a writhing nightmare in his hand and lowering it back into his head tank.

"How did you— how did it die?" Candy asked, nodding at the carcass at their feet.

"Fright," Carrion answered as he stood. The nightmare he'd just replaced rubbed against his cheek. Candy looked away, revolted.

Her teeth were chattering. "We must get you back at once," he said. He was looking at her with that wide-eyed soppy look he brought out occasionally.

Candy couldn't bear to look at him until they were back at the glyph. Letheo hesitantly climbed out to greet them.

"Some help you were," Carrion glared at him.

"D-did you need my help, my Lord?" Letheo's eyes were wide.

"No," Carrion said, with no small amount of satisfaction. "Now get out of the way, Lady Candy needs to warm up."

"Of-of course," Letheo mumbled, and nearly fell in his haste to step aside.

Candy felt exhausted. She gratefully climbed back into the glyph and curled up in a chair. She shut her eyes and paid as little attention as possible to everything until they were landing in the courtyard of the Dead Man's House.

 

The next day— or night— or some hour in the future, anyway, Candy was sitting beside a fireplace, mindlessly watching the flickering dance of the flames.

She heard someone come into the room and knew it was Carrion. There was another chair by the fire and he took it. He had a black-edged piece of paper in his hands. "My grandmother wants to know if I've killed you yet," he said.

"What did you tell her?"

"Nothing, yet." He looked into the fire, too. Candy watched him out of the corner of her eye. He was fidgeting with the letter, which made him seem nervous. It was a very strange look on him. "I will have to tell her something eventually, though. Before she comes looking for me. Or sends some of her stitchlings to do it for her. What do you suggest I tell her?"

Candy couldn't hide her surprise. "Why ask me?"

"Why not?"

"It's none of my business," she mumbled.

"It's your life," he sounded curious.

"And you're saving it by keeping me here," she said flatly.

"She wants me to kill you or take you back to Gorgossium so _she_ can kill you. I'd rather you not die."

Candy rubbed a hand over her eyes. She was so tired all the time now. "I suppose it would have made killing that beast rather worthless, if I die now."

Carrion shrugged. "I do not think much of killing one of the beasts of Efreet. There are many others."

"But they used to be people," Candy said.

"As you say."

"So all the beasts of Efreet— could they all be people again, if you gave them this potion?" Candy asked, frowning. He nodded. "Then why only give it to Letheo?"

"Letheo is the youngest," Carrion replied. "And the most… willing, shall we say."

"Willing?"

"Pliable."

"But you could help them," Candy said.

"They have no interest in helping me."

Candy looked into Carrion's eyes, where compassion should have been but wasn't.

"Why did you save me? Surely it would have been easier to let the beast have me."

He almost looked shocked. "I love you."

"I can't love you," Candy said. After a moment she added "I'm sorry. But I can't."

She chanced a look at him and wished she hadn't. His face was twisted in rage. Or, perhaps, pain. "Is there nothing I can do—"

"You've already saved my life," she pointed out. "But… your nightmares scared an animal to death. How could I… how could I love that?"

"You think we're so different, Candy Quackenbush?" he hissed. "You, too, spread chaos and disaster everywhere you go. You forget, everywhere you went, I have been also. How many deaths are you responsible for, girl? At least I acknowledge what I am."

It was awful to hear her own secret thoughts spoken aloud like that, spoken by someone else. "I'm not like you," she said, but her voice trembled.

"You have caused more disruption to the Abarat in a few weeks than I have in years. Candy, Candy, you're no better than me. You're just like me."

She was gripping the arms of her chair hard. Carrion had risen to his feet but Candy was thinking too hard to notice.

"We're not alike," she said finally. "Because I don't _mean_ to do harm. I'm trying to do good."

"Good intentions?" Carrion scoffed. "What difference does that make, when it's trouble all the same?"

Candy met his eyes, unafraid. "It makes a difference, and you would know that if you had a conscious. It makes all the difference in the world." She stood up now, not in anger but in confidence. "I don't think I'll come to dinner tonight, Lord Carrion. If you'll excuse me." Without another word— and certainly not waiting for his response, Candy swept from the room.

 

Even alone in her room, Candy did not feel nervous, only a kind of exhilaration. What was done was done, there was no taking it back now.

To calm herself down, steady herself, Candy whispered the glyph-forming spell she had learned from Malingo. She didn't try to actually build a glyph; she mainly wanted to be sure she remembered how. Of course, there was only one way to tell for sure.

 _I_ could _build a glyph,_ she thought. _In the courtyard._ If she did it when he was asleep— did he ever sleep? It would be a risk, but Candy was willing to take it. She'd stayed here much too long already.

 

She spent some time peering out her door, just barely opened, and listening for sounds of movement anywhere in the House. The House tended to creak on its own, with age or movement or whatever it was, so discerning footsteps was difficult.

Candy waited; the corridor remained dark and empty. Shoes in hand, Candy slid down the corridor. At the next corner she paused, waited, peaked, and slid again. At the next she waited in a dark doorway for one of the mindless servants to pass, holding her breath. It made her nervous and she hurried a bit more. She did not take one of the doors into the courtyard. Instead she went into an empty room that faced it on the ground floor. At the window she put her shoes on and contorted herself until she was through the window and standing outside. It had started snowing again, but just softly.

Two of the courtyard corners were in deep shadow, so Candy ran for the nearest one. She took a deep breath and began to mark out a circle, whispering the words. She started throwing air maybe a little earlier than she should have but all her time was borrowed. She tried to stop her hands from shaking, tried to find the right level of voice. It had to be soft but confident.

 _"Ithni asme ata,  
Ithni manamee…"_

Candy tried to keep her focus on what she was doing, on imagining the glyph, on keeping the circle even and throwing air. It was hard, at first, to not constantly scan the windows for lights going on, hard to concentrate on the words and not listen for someone raising the alarm. But as the spell progressed Candy was able to focus, to feel the words and the air and let the glyph take shape in her mind's eye.

 _"Drutha lotacata,  
Come thou glyph to me"_

After what felt like hours and hours, but surely wasn't, the words started to stick in the air, sparkling and flashing and assembling themselves into a shape with some kind of order.

Finally, Candy felt like she could step back and watch the glyph finish itself. She felt like she'd just been running and running, but adrenaline gave her still further reserves, and her heart lightened with every bit of the glyph that solidified itself into existence.

"Candy," his voice echoed around the courtyard so strongly that Candy didn't know where to look, "what do you think you're doing?"

Carrion was standing in the doorway across the courtyard from her. Letheo was standing in front of another doorway. She had no idea if he'd be a help or hindrance. If he proved to be the former, she was willing to take him with her.

Carrion started across the courtyard, his step slow and deliberate. He wasn't worried about the glyph finishing in time. He wasn't often wrong, either.

"Did you think I wouldn't feel a glyph being built in my own house?" he asked. There was no affection in his face now, and the nightmares were writhing and sparking around his face, giving off an eerie, ugly light that seemed to fill the courtyard. Candy's glyph was at her back, warming the air slightly as it continued to grow. Letheo was hurrying across the courtyard too, glance darting between Carrion and Candy. He had further to come than the Lord of Midnight, however.

"What did you think you were going to do, if you got out?" Carrion was seething toward her now. But Letheo was pointing behind her, mouth open silently, and Candy ignored Carrion and turned around.

It was not a very good glyph. It was small and ramshackle and unstable, but it was _finished_ and hopefully it would fly— Candy wished with all her heart that it would fly— and it would at least get her out of the Dead Man's House, if not off Efreet. And as for what was waiting for her on the rest of Efreet— she wouldn't think about that now. She would deal with whatever came up when it came up.

"You'll be killed," Carrion said.

"I'll take my chances," she said, and climbed in the glyph. For the first time since setting foot on Efreet, she felt like herself again. The glyph shook heavily and the floor felt like it was bending under her feet. She ignored it, ignored everything, and sat down. _Fly,_ she told it. _Up._

Carrion had now reached her glyph and was watching with some interest. The glyph didn't move.

"Oh come on!" she shouted. "Go up!"

"If you come out now, Candy," he said, "we can still discuss this. It's not too late, I'm willing to be merciful. You can't get out, you must see—"

But the glyph _was_ rising now. Just a bit, but then it shot up, far out of Carrion's grip.

"Lordy Lou," Candy said, weak with relief.

She could still see Carrion's face, staring up at her, the look of fury horribly up-lit by the nightmares.

The glyph faltered a little in the wind and Candy put all her attention into urging it steady, urging it higher. Just high enough to get over the roof. She look back and saw, with a jolt of despair that hit her stomach like the plunge on a roller coaster, that Carrion was now building his own glyph.

The winds were stronger up here, buffeting her poor little glyph this way and that. Candy let it sink a bit lower, just above the tree line, hoping it would help. It didn't seem to make much difference. When she looked over her shoulder, she could see Carrion's glyph already in the air.

She made for the shore anyway. The sight of the Izabella warmed her heart. Now that she had a better view, though, she belatedly realized she should have made for Autland. There was a bridge, so she could put down if she had to, but to turn that way would put her within catching distance of Carrion.

The glyph started to spark under her hands and she drew them up with a gasp. Candy knew Carrion was behind this but not how to fight it. She was almost to the beach and the glyph was rapidly loosing height. This wasn't as bad as it could have been since the glyph also seemed to be falling apart.

But Candy could see something Carrion couldn't see.

The beach was not deserted.

The glyph lasted just long enough to set her gently down on the ground. Candy didn't wait even a second but hit the ground running. She still had to cross most of the beach, and running in sand was hard work.

"HELLO," she shouted. "CAN YOU HELP ME?"

Heads popped up above the sides of the boat sitting at anchor just off the coast. Very strange heads.

"LADY CANDY!" came several shouts.

Candy started to laugh. She didn't look over her shoulder, instead watching a little boat being lowered. She splashed into the water to meet it. Carrion, somewhere behind her, roared with rage, but Candy was being pulled onto the boat by Malingo and John Mischief, with all his brothers crying welcome.

She looked back at the shore. Carrion had landed and gotten out of the glyph, which had caused it to start to disintegrate. He would have to build a new one to follow them. Across the sand and water she could feel his eyes burning into her; she looked back, unafraid. At least until Malingo, trying to wrap her in a coat, accidentally covered her head.

A gust of wind carried Carrion's voice to them. "Don't think this is over, Candy Quackenbush."

Candy laughed and huddled against Malingo's side, wrapped up so tightly she couldn't move. But just now, she didn't mind.


End file.
